Seven Wonderful Worldwide Food Blogs

Hello everybody!!! I've been looking around the internet lately for new and interesting sites and blogs, and came across these seven spots from around the world where you can find great food and great food photography!


#1 - Grilled Cheese Social

Location: New York, USA
Specialty: Cooking with cheese!

#2 - Cafe Fernando

Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Specialty: All kinds of food, sometimes San Francisco-inspired

#3 - A Life (Time) of Cooking

Location: Adelaide, Australia
Specialty: Indian food

#4 - Behind the Skillet

Location: Germany (but written by an American)
Specialty: A variety, but leaning toward baked goods and vegetarian food

#5 - Cream Puffs in Venice

Location: Toronto, Canada
Specialty: Italian food

#6 - What's Cooking, Mexico?

Location: Mexico
Speciality: Mexican food

#7 - Golubka

Location: Florida, USA
Specialty: Russian Raw Food!

Whew, now I'm hungry again! I'll go stuff myself and write more later ;-)

Yours,
Michael TheMonkey

Prayer Trees and Bibimbap

On large old Ginkgo trees in Korea, people sometimes hang prayers or names of people to whom they'd like to bring good luck.

Prayers

Buds

Bibimbap is rice and egg mixed with other things, usually the sides that come with other dishes in Korea, such as various cooked vegetables and hot pepper paste. It is sometimes described as "temple food" because it was (and is) a common meal for Buddhist monks with vows not to eat meat. The combination of egg, rice and mixed vegetables provides a fairly balanced vegetarian meal. There are not hard and fast rules about bibimbap, though, sometimes meat is added.

My bibimbap has rice, egg, salted seaweed with sesame seeds, carrots and hot pepper paste.

'Til next time!

Michael TheMonkey

Polaroid Korea and Summer Thoughts - Toy Photo Post

Hello again from Korea!!!

I'd like to share some Polaroids and split-frame photos I've collected.  In Korea, photography in general is popular -- many people have the newest digital SLRs and, of course, every cell phone comes with a camera, but these low-tech cameras are still readily available and very popular.

A Polaroid-mini camera

I like these because many of them are from summer :-)

And here are some cameras that shoot split-screen or quad-screen images!!!

A quad-frame camera and the "Golden Half" split-screen camera.

Lanterns

Pigeons!

A little bunny

A kitty

Warsaw, Poland

I hope you like them!!! I'll share some more later!

All the Best,
Michael TheMonkey

A sunny winter day

I just wanted to share a few more scenes from Andong, South Korea! I even found another Monkey!

Ice below the bridge

A new park!

A road that leads to a tower

Decorative roadside plants

A long lost brother?

A bridge and a poem

안녕하세요!   Hello again from Korea!

Here I am near the rainbow bridge between Jeongha-dong and downtown Andong!

I took a walk down by the river today. The light was gold in the late afternoon and it was a little warmer today than it has been :-)

Here are a few interesting things you might not know about Korea:

• The competitive playing of some video games is televised. The most popular game played as an "E-Sport" in Korea is Starcraft. There is an entire channel devoted to E-sports.
• Holiday gifts are usually simple and practical things like food, drinks and health products, especially ginseng.
• Young couples in Korea sometimes purchase and sport complete matching outfits, called "couple wear."
• While Taekwondo is Korea's official national sport and is widely practiced, Soccer, baseball and basketball are the most popular televised sports. Korea has 8 professional baseball teams.
• You should never pour a drink for yourself in Korea, especially soju! If someone older than you fills your cup, it is polite to hold the cup with two hands as they pour.
• Personal image is very important in Korea and people generally spend time dressing up before going out. Business suits, dresses and skirts are common.
• It is good luck to visit at least three different temples on Buddha's birthday (in Early May.) Many temples provide visitors with a free meal of Bibimbap (riced mixed with egg and vegetables) on that day.
• At restaurants in Korea, servers generally do not check up on their tables as they might in many Western countries, it is expected that customers will summon them by shouting "Yeo-gi-o!" or by pressing an electronic call button on the table when they need service.
• Use of the Koreanized form of the word "service"("suh-bees-uh") in a restaurant means that something is "on the house."
  
• The rainbow bridge in Andong is populated by thousands of web-building spiders during the summer time and makes sounds like grunting animals at night when its lights are turned on. :-)

The rainbow bridge

Under the bridge

The area around the river is being landscaped and developed.

And here is a poem by one of Korea's most famous poets, Yun Dong-Ju (윤동주)

Let me have no shame
Under heaven
Until I die
Even wind among the leaves
Pains my heart.

With a heart singing stars,
I will love all dying things
And I must follow the path
That's been given to me.

Tonight also
The wind sweeps past among the stars.

Yours truly,
Michael TheMonkey